Week 12 words from @handelsit: friend, bank, hand, man, end.

I've spent my joy

in careless Autumn afternoons

now she is no friend of mine

and I must bank

on happiness instead

~

I hand over my heart

wrapped carefully

in lines of cramped

and almost illegible prose

the stony edifice of the man

behind the counter

rasps against my skin

and my pages curl inwards

to hide the end

~~~~

Here are the words and my poem for the twelfth week of the 2019 Poetry Challenge.

This one was really tricky. Both the words and finding the motivation to write it. I've cheated a little as it's in two parts. I just couldn't seem to get the first two words to fit neatly in the poem so I made a separate little introduction piece.

On the weekend, however, I did an amazing poetry workshop run by Melbourne Spoken Word, The artist was Joel McKerrow and he shared his creative process and performance technique. He said the only way to write good poetry is to write lots of bad poetry and then stitch the hidden pearls together into a beautiful necklace, Well maybe not the last bit but he writes a poem a day and apparently a lot of them are crap but sometimes, there's something good. It was an amazing experience learning from Joel and I'm feeling much more motivated to write poetry!

If you want to join the 2019 Poetry Challenge, head on over to my Instagram account (@indraniperera) where I post the words for the week on Mondays (mostly) in my story. Write a poem and post it. Be sure to tag me and use the hashtags #2019poetrychallenge and #livepoetsclub. 

If you don't want to write a poem, you can still be part of the 2019 Poetry Challenge. Send me five random words and I'll use them in a poem. Either DM me on Instagram with the words or send me an email (indrani at indraniperera dot com).

Happy writing!